


Self-Image Drabble 2

by Mattie_the_Pand0rk



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Body Dysmorphia, Body Dysphoria, Body Image, Eating Disorders, Food Issues, Gen, Other, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 07:12:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18655525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mattie_the_Pand0rk/pseuds/Mattie_the_Pand0rk
Summary: A little vent peice I'm writing at work because it's on my mind and I am hating myself right now. Aster and I character wise share a very acute sense of self-hatred for the way we look, and how we feel regarding our obese statuses.





	Self-Image Drabble 2

**Author's Note:**

> Be warned. This will have graphic self harm scenes, and mention of food and eating disorders, along with copious amounts of self loathing.

Aster is sitting in his private lab crying. He hasn't cried this hard in a long, long time, but he's feeling so miserable. Earlier in the day he had a meeting with a colleague from the East coast, and it was sickening. They had not met before, and his immediate reaction was to turn to his tall, lean, fit counterpart Doctor Viktor Fontaine and asked why a lazy fat intern was sitting in on the meeting.

At the time he took it in stride when Viktor defended him, explaining that the one he just insulted was the one he'd been in contact with over the past 4 years. He had to retain his professionalism in the face of adversity, after all. But deep in his Void-covered SOUL it hurt worse than when he obtained the permanent cracks on his face. "Ha-ha," he laughed dryly as he offered his hole-punched hand for a handshake. "Not to worry, I know I don't look like much but I assure you there is more under this mallow-y surface. Let's talk business, now, hm?"

Marshmallow. Fluffy. Round. Rotund. "Dad Bod".

Either way he cut it it was just a dancing around the word. He is _**fat**_.

He isn't at all taken seriously by anyone because how on this good green earth could someone look like he does and be healthy, happy, in charge? Meeting after meeting, it's the same thing. He's the intern, he's the lazy go-between, he's an aspiring scientist who eats too much cake. 

He tried everything. Diets, both fad and tried and true, all sorts of exercises for months, as far as 2 years. Eating a little, or not eating at all. Both with disastrous results. Misery. Starvation. Binging, then more weight gain. Over and over and over. It's like his CoDe is keeping him "obese" even though he can outlast Viktor in sparring matches when he's so inclined. He's tired of friends and strangers alike give him advice when he never asked for it. He's tired of being told it's easy to lose weight, when it shouldn't matter if he's healthy, right? He's even gotten a degree in medi-magic science to tell him logically, yes, that should be true! But it doesn't matter--no one listens to him now. He's too cute, too round, too "jolly" to be taken seriously. 

He sees himself reflected in a metal beaker, cringes with how ugly his reflection makes him feel, and crushes it in his hand, contents and all. The contents happen to be a low percentage hydrochloric acid, and burns his hand all over. He whimpers, but realizes the pain is distracting him from just how horrid he feels. He looks over his work station. Neatly lined up are some of his scalpels, scissors, syringes...   
  
No. He can't... he shouldn't. But the pain feels so much better than this rack turning again and again on his SOUL. A burned, slightly peeling and purplish hand shakily reaches for a scalpel. He knows logically this will change nothing, but he so wishes that it would. That it can. He grips that knife, renewing the burning from the acid in the cuts in his hands the beaker made, sobbing. "Fucking... bastard," he mutters to himself.

Lifting up the blade in an angry, pained fist, he looks down at the offending round blob that is his belly. He wants to cut it away. Peel back that awful layer he never asked for and reveal his original form underneath. Skin, and bone. At least he was taken seriously! At least he was respected! He wasn't called a Marshmallow. Or lazy, or gross or flatulent or any of those awful things he hears those horrid "fellow" scientists whisper in their shallow minds.

Angry at everything and nothing, himself mostly, the hand swings down on its own and buries itself past where the blade and handle meet right into his roundness through his clothes. Aster screams out and sobs, doing it again, with more purpose. Gritting and grinding his teeth through his crying, tears fall through clamped eyes as the blade strikes again and again. It continues to pierce his clothes and flesh, and soon Aster forgets why he's doing it other than that it's making his misery tangible. Stab after stab, his clothes are shredded and blood and Void matter and purple magic spill from each wound. His voice becomes weak, hoarse, from just how much he's screaming.   
  
Yes, let the pain flow, right? The knife snaps in his hand as it swings down again. Aster is dizzy from losing blood, but he's not done yet as he throws the abused scalpel to the side and reaches out for a bigger blade. This one goes into his upper right arm, stabbing at his flabby "batwings" as he heard some women call them once. This is even more painful, but it doesn't stop him. He doesn't care just how bad it is, it's making him able to see the ache that his SOUL is telling him is there. That's what he's telling himself he needs, anyway. All his pain, his anger, his self-hatred is at its peak and he's snapped. He's tired of it. He should have stayed in the Void, keeping himself a forgotten memory only. His existence doesn't matter, because it doesn't matter what he's done for this world, it just matters what you look like!   
  
The refueled anger drives him into blind fury as he continues to stab away, now into his left arm, the tears are dried on his face now, and no more seem to be able to flow. He's getting dizzier, weaker, more unstable. He's lost a lot of blood, it's pooling at his feet. His extensive HoPe levels are reducing to almost nothing, the bleeding and the stabs slowly diminishing his life points.   
  
With a furious vigor, he takes the blade into both hands and leans forward, stabbing himself in the belly one more time. It hits deep, striking a nerve that makes him immediately pass out and hit his head onto his desk, smashing his glasses, and then falling to the floor. He should have stayed dead, his last thought before black washes over his mind.

_______

There's a knock on the door, and Aster is hazy and twilighted. "Aster?" A familiar voice says. It makes Aster mentally cringe. But he can't seem to find his voice. "Aster, it's Viktor."

He manages a few words. "I know who it is," he croaks. "Leave me be." He realizes he's at home in his and Madlayne's bed. How he got here, he isn't sure, but he is certainly far from happy about it.  
  
"Alright, Aster, enough of this. This is not the Lich I know," Viktor growls, stepping forward. Aster's eyes flutter open. They sting and are very dry, despite the rest of himself being cottony and unfeeling.

"Fuck off, twat, you hardly know me at all," Aster slurs, trying to move away from the approaching counterpart. Tears finally spring forth again, making him sniffle. The motion in his gut he expected to bring him pain, but nothing came of it. Whatever he was given they must have tripled the dose. Not even his own medications work this effectively. It makes him even more uncomfortable.

"Shut up, the only twat here is you, you British punk. Do you even know what you did to--"

"--I know what I did was none of your business you bloody bastard now get out of my house!"

Viktor hisses and leans down right into Aster's face. "Listen here, Aster Wingdings Serif, and you listen well! Never mind what it did to you, I know you know what you did, I can replay all of that clearly like a video in my head! But did you ever think to ask yourself what it would do to Madlayne?" Aster sniffs. "To me?" He scoffs. "To your SONS?" That made him wince. He tries to escape Viktor's closeness, but the sharper Lich grabs his shirt and pulls him in to keep him right there so he can't run away.   
  
"You were doing your very best and what do you do? You let one insignificant Human be the final straw on your fragile self-image, you ill-tempered swampthing! If you had not already dished out your own punishment I would be giving you a blaster right up your ass!" Viktor is now sniffing, but no tears are appearing. Yet. "Don't you understand? These fucking Humans don't matter! But you do! Without you, none of what you have done would matter! Clearly these Humans have their priorities backwards because despite being your counterpart, YOU are the one with the ideas and YOU are the one who makes everything possible! Just because they only see me does NOT mean you can just off yourself you idiotic, beautiful man!" As Viktor ensues his onslaught of his own version of a "why we care" speech, his voice gets higher, more staticky, panicked even. "YOU are the reason your family exists and you just wanted to abandon all of us because some thin-headed pencil dick called you a name like a Kindergartner? EH? WHaT GIvES AsTER? TELL ME!" He gives Aster a bit of a shake and forces him to lock eyes.   
  
Viktor reads into Aster's thoughts. How he hates his body, how he's judged constantly, how he can't even look in a mirror without wishing he looked even a little like he used to, or even Viktor with his hard, confidant musculature. "So that's it? You hate yourself because you are doing what you can and still it doesn't feel like it's enough? That you want to look like me? Or your old self?" Aster tears up, and tries to shove away from Viktor. But he's being held tightly, so he's not going anywhere. "You can't go back," Viktor says flatly. Aster gives him a hurt look. "No, it's not supposed to make you feel better." He sets Aster back down into the bed, knowing he won't go anywhere.

"I stopped caring whether people found me frightening or not," Viktor quips. "You should stop caring if people call you fat. Because you are, like I am terrifying."   
  
"You're shit at comforting, Viktor," Aster grumbles, sniveling again. He wishes he could curl up, but he still can't feel his body.

"Maybe so. But that's why you're a good medical doctor. Bedside manner and all. Something I could not ever do properly, even with training." Viktor rolls his shoulders back. "So what if people don't take you seriously? You are the one coming up with the ideas, the tech. You have hundreds of scientists under your thumb to do your bidding, myself included. Your power is only overshadowed by your self-image problems, and by Asgore if you just accepted and as the kids these days say 'owned' your fatness, you'd be the most powerful Monster on this planet. **Make** them take you seriously. Shock the hell out of them and floor them with your mental prowess!"

Aster rolls his good eye at Viktor. What a bloody stupid cliche.

He leans down over Aster again, eyes angry and sharp at his counterpart. It makes Aster flinch. "Do you know why people always assume I'm the leader, Serif?" Because you're a terrifying, ripped giant? "NO, get PAST this that it it all about the weight, you idiotic buffoon!" He slaps Aster upside the head. "It's because I'm confidant! I don't shrink back when meeting people, I assert myself! But you are too fucking afraid to even shake a Human's hand, let alone direct a board meeting! What happened, did you give the Confidence part of your SOUL to Papyrus when you made him, you moron?"

Aster finds his hand again just in time to smack Viktor upside the head himself. "Stop calling me names you childish prick!"

"Why, what are you going to do about it?" He slaps Aster.

"When I find my body again I'm going to beat the magic right out of you!" Aster hisses, his toes wriggling again.

"All talk, again! See, this is your problem, and you are too thick in the skull to see the forest through the trees!"

"Stop it!" Aster whines, tears pricking his eyes again.

"Make me," Viktor teases, slapping him again. "Little bitch."

Aster's arm breaks free from the chemical restraint and swings up almost on its own volition to crack right against Viktor's jaw. It makes the Underfell Gaster counterpart reel back a step and rub his mouth, but he's far from angry. In fact, he's laughing. "Is that all you have, little bitch?"

"Don't call me that!" Another leg breaks free as he sits up. He doesn't feel any pain... someone must have healed some of the deeper stuff.  
  
"Big talk coming from such a ... little bitch."

"ENOUGH." Aster leaps out of bed and launches right at Viktor, sobbing and angry now instead of depressed. He doesn't even realize he's mostly naked. Or wrapped partially in bandages. Or that those bandages are bleeding. "I'm so sick of everyone comparing me to you! You're nothing like me! I'm NOT a bitch! Just shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!"

Aster is wailing on Viktor, and he's taking it like a champ, laughing. Finally. Even though he know it's going to hurt later, it's totally worth it to see Aster getting fired up for a change. Of course, Viktor isn't just laying back while Aster is punching into him. Oh no. This is a full-on brawl. But Aster is faster, and actually surprisingly stronger, than Viktor, so he's actually getting in more punches.

After about twenty minutes of furious punching and even kicking, Aster has worn himself out and is just hanging himself over Viktor's bruised frame. He's sobbing. "I'm a little bitch.. I'm a little bitch..." he whines into Viktor's shoulder.

"No... no you're not." He sympathetically pats Aster on the back. "You're just broken. It's okay." Even though he is completely different from Aster, he still thoroughly understands the self-image issues. But that's a demon for another time, that he needs to wrestle on his own. Right now it's about the Monster leaning into him crying. "We'll work on that confidence. ...Even if we have to employ Papyrus and Undyne's unique set of skills."

Aster cringes. "Please don't tell Papyrus or Sans."

"Er... too late on that. They had to help me and Madlayne heal you. I did not know Sans or Papyrus had healing ability." He pauses. "You cannot protect them from everything. You have to let that go, too, you know. It is eating into that whole self-conscious thing." Aster just whimpers and continues to hang on Viktor. Seems he needs to cuddle. That's fine with him. "Let's get you back into bed. It is going to take a couple days to get you completely healed, even with all four of us working to get you up and running."

Aster looks down. Now he sees that he's nude. He's still not recovered enough blood to blush, though. "I have seen you naked, do not even dare to go there." While he's right, it still doesn't make it any less embarrassing for the usually soft-spoken Lich Monster.

He tucks Aster back into the covers, and moves to grab something from his night stand. Aster grabs his wrist. "Wait. Don't leave, please." In actuality he likes cuddling with Viktor, and he's strangely comforting despite his harder disposition even now.

"I am not going anywhere, I was simply grabbing the syringe I prepared earlier to inject the medicine into you," Viktor sighs. He walks around after Aster drops his hand and kicks off his shoes before slipping into the bed over the covers behind Aster. "Call your SOUL out." Aster does so, reluctantly, and Viktor wastes no time in stabbing his being with the needle. Aster winces, but does not move. With a little kiss, the injection is over and he sets the needle aside and curls up closer to Aster to be the big spoon more officially. "There. Now sleep. "

Aster complies while recalling his SOUL, letting the heavy duty drugs blanket over the ache that was starting to set in. He appreciates what all Viktor had done, but it's going to be a long time before he has even a smidgen of confidence that his counterpart has. And even more time before he can come to terms with how he will look the rest of forever.


End file.
